October 2022 – If there is something

Slow explosions

I’m standing in my backyard while a torrent of orange and yellow leaves drift down all around me and pile up at my feet. The scene is reminiscent of that moment at the end of a political convention when the nominee accepts their party’s nomination and a gusher of confetti and balloons is loosed from the hall’s rafters while the crowd goes nuts and Fleetwood Mac sings “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.” Only no one’s cheering and I’m not pretending to point at people in the crowd and act surprised to see them. Actually, I do point at a squirrel and give him a thumbs up.

A wise man named Tomberg once described an acorn as a “constructive atomic bomb.” The oak itself is “the result of the slow explosion or the blossoming out of this ‘bomb.’” If that’s the case, then I’m standing beneath a mushroom cloud. This particular explosion came not from an acorn, but one of those helicopter seedlings that flew its mission generations ago, and detonated in this spot where the “slow explosion” of this mighty maple tree has been ongoing for, most likely, in excess of a century.

The fallout continues. Orange and yellow splotches combine with red from another explosion nearby to overwhelm the gray sky. These are creative explosions. Through the years, the maple I’m standing beneath has been home to quite a number of squirrels and a few woodpeckers. It’s like a multi-family high rise. Earlier this year, I discovered dozens of small bundles of twigs and leaves scattered about beneath the tree. These were not dead parts that had broken away and fallen to the ground. Some creature, undoubtedly engaged in a major renovation project, had cut away these leafy twigs to make room high in the canopy for its expanding living space.

Despite the hours of work ahead of me, for which at this moment Fleetwood Mac should be erupting in song and my family should be rhythmically clapping along in appreciation, it’s hard not to become disoriented in the brilliant twisting colors and the gentle murmuring of the wind. When the moment pulls you away from yourself and surrounds you with its grace and beauty, everything’s ecstatic. In this instant, I am a slow, silent explosion, imperceptibly unfolding.

And then the mournful wail of a distant leaf blower breaks in and obliterates the moment. Cursed leaf blower! Then it’s just me, my rake, my tarp and quite a mess to clean up.

Predator in the park Part 4

With a confidential informant in sheriff’s custody revealing details of what happened on November 12, 1984, and a suspect, Joseph Mark McCormick, whose DNA implicated him in the rape and murder of Peggy Sue Altes, investigators finally began to let go of the idea that Jerry Watkins was in any way involved in the killing. However, from the benefit of hindsight, one has to wonder if the damage was already done. With Hancock County authorities so sure that Jerry Watkins was the guy, and their failure to pursue anyone else during the fourteen years Watkins sat in prison, how could investigators now be perceived as credible as they began to turn their attention to other suspects?

According to the confidential informant, several men, including himself and McCormick, were participants in the crime. After Peggy Sue was kidnapped from Porter Park, she was transferred from a car to a van that was driven by McCormick. After driving around, the van ends up in the Hancock County field where the murder took place and where Peggy Sue’s body would eventually be discovered. Initially the informant attempted to distance himself from the worst aspects of the crime. “(The informant) at first said that he and another man were dropped off at a culvert near the scene but later said he actually went there and saw what happened. He still has nightmares about it,” Captain Jim Bradbury testified at a bond hearing.

Naturally, McCormick’s defense attorney John Davis highlighted the confusing and constantly shifting narrative of events offered by investigators. “I am just trying to figure out what they say happened,” Davis said, playing the simple country lawyer for reporters. “Their informant has told seven different stories of what happened….I’m just trying to make some sense of it all.” Even as investigators were finally starting to put the puzzle together, it was clear they were going to face an uphill battle after they’d previously worked tirelessly to ignore the truth for so long.

At McCormick’s bond hearing in late September of 2001, another member of the murderous crew responsible for the brutal slaying of Peggy Sue Altes emerged from the shadows when former confidential informant Kenneth Wayne Munson took the stand. Munson testified that on the afternoon of November 12, 1984, he visited the home of a friend on the southeast side of Indianapolis. After smoking some marijuana, he, the friend and several other men went to a local liquor store in a van driven by Joseph McCormick. However, the men did not purchase any alcohol, but drove to nearby Porter Park instead. There they met with another group of people who had already grabbed Peggy Sue and were holding her in a Camaro. “They had her in the back seat of their car and they pulled the car up to the side of the van and shoved her from the car into the van,” Munson testified. Once in the van, Peggy Sue was bound with cloth and sat on a milk crate between the front seats. Munson sat in the back on the floor of the van as McCormick drove to a park on Prospect Street. Most likely, the park Munson referred to is Paul Ruster Park at 11300 Prospect Street, near the Marion County/Hancock County line. According to Munson’s testimony, it was at this park where McCormick raped the girl. “I pleaded for the girl. I tried to get him to stop but (another man) stuck a gun in my face and told me to shut up and don’t cause no trouble….I saw your client rape that baby,” an emotional Munson told defense attorney John Davis. The man who threatened Munson with a gun was the friend Munson visited that afternoon. Munson testified that he was bound with duct tape. The van continued to the Hancock County field where Munson was able to free himself from the duct tape as McCormick again raped Peggy Sue and another man attempted to. According to Munson’s testimony, McCormick then held the girl while another man stabbed Peggy Sue. Munson testified that as many as five men were in the field when the crime occurred and that McCormick threatened him after the crime. “Joe wanted to shoot me. I ran and hid for two days.”

Investigators believed Munson’s story because he was able to provide a description of the vehicles and weapons used in the commision of the crime. Additionally, a year earlier, Munson was able to retrace the route taken by the abductors and lead investigators to the location of the crime scene. “He was pretty shaken up about being there,” Indianapolis Police Department Lt. Louis Christ testified at the hearing. “There was a small deer at the corner of Jacobi Road and the lane when we drove up that day and (Munson) started to tear up. We stood there for a while and he just cried. He wasn’t saying much that day.”

There seems to be little doubt that Ken Munson was a witness to the horrible events of that day back in 1984. Even if he fudged a few facts in an attempt to limit his culpability in the crime, he clearly knew things only a participant would know, and the DNA evidence against McCormick backed up his story. Despite his career as a criminal, Ken Munson seemed genuinely affected and remorseful over the events of that day, and willingly gave his testimony even though he surely knew that he was implicating himself in serious criminality that would land him back in prison. However, as the murder trial of Joseph Mark McCormick approached, he too would have a few things to say about the bloody crime and the vicious men involved, things that would implicate others and reveal Ken Munson to be less the unfortunate witness and more the willing participant.

Sources:

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

The Daily Reporter (Greenfield, Indiana)

Watkins v. Miller, Southern District of Indiana (2000)

Environmental activists spend eleven days glued to sculpture when museum patrons and staff mistake them for part of the exhibit

A group of environmental activists are recovering in the hospital today after spending nearly two weeks glued to a sculpture without access to food and water.

Members of Earth’s Best Friend were rushed to the emergency room suffering from dehydration when it was discovered that they were not actually part of an art installation at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C.

After gluing themselves to an exhibit entitled Bedtime For Capitalism, protesters set about imploring patrons to question whether wealth was more important than the planet and people.

“I just thought it was part of the installation,” said Arthur Whitfield, a security guard for the museum. “I mean, they were quite convincing. They poured motor oil over each other and stuck dollar bills to themselves. Museum goers were literally taking out their wallets and sticking bills onto the protesters.”

According to statements from witnesses, even days later when protesters began to beg for help, saying they were dying, instead of offering aid, patrons merely commented on how powerful the exhibit was.

“People were in tears,” said Whitfield. “That’s how moving the piece had become for them.”

Apparently, it wasn’t until museum officials contacted Bedtime For Capitalism’s creator to notify her of all the acclaim the piece was receiving that officials learned the protesters were not actually part of the exhibit.

However, contract negotiations are currently underway between the artist and protesters for a satisfactory sum to get the kids back on their feet and back into the exhibit.

Predator in the park Part 3

With Jerry Watkins securely behind bars, the actual killers of Peggy Sue Altes were now free to pursue their depraved criminality without fear of having to answer for their bloody deeds. For 16 years after committing this unspeakable act of evil, the murderous jackals continued to stalk the innocent while Peggy Sue’s blood stained their clothes and the sound of her cries and pleadings reverberated in their drug and alcohol soaked memory. And despite the knowledge that Jerry Watkins could not have been Peggy Sue’s assailant, which included star witness, Dennis Ackeratt, recanting his testimony, Hancock County officials fought like hell to keep the wrong man behind bars.

Eventually, on April 25, 2000, U.S. District Judge David E. Hamilton overturned Watkins’ 1986 conviction, citing DNA and additional evidence investigators and prosecutors failed to disclose to the defense at the time of Watkins’ trial. In addition to the DNA evidence eliminating Watkins as Peggy Sue’s rapist, Judge Hamilton’s decision cited the eyewitness to Peggy Sue’s abduction at Porter Park, another suspect who had failed a polygraph, men who had admitted involvement in the crime to others and a man who was seen wearing bloody clothes the night of the murder all as evidence “that no reasonable jury would find Watkins guilty of murdering Peggy Sue Altes.”

Naturally, Myrlene Altes, Peggy Sue’s mother, was devastated. “If you want a pervert out on the street, that’s what you’re going to get. I’m very angry because this guy is dangerous,” Mrs. Altes told reporters. It is certainly true that they were letting a pervert out onto the street. Jerry Watkins had inflicted immeasurable and lasting damage on the Altes family, but he could not have been Peggy Sue’s killer. Those degenerate monsters were still at large, slinking in the shadows between brief stretches behind bars for other criminal offenses.

In August of 2001, the same DNA evidence that led to the release of Jerry Watkins shone a spotlight on one of the shadowy predators. Joseph Mark McCormick was found to be a match to the crime scene DNA to a certainty of one person in 1.5 billion. “We put the evidence through an analyzer and it mapped everything,” Indiana State Police DNA database supervisor Paul Misner told The Daily Reporter. “All we did was use the computer to match the sample we had with anyone in the database. Everyone arrested in Indiana on crimes against persons or serious offenses is required to provide a DNA sample that is kept on record. We just did a cross match and found a match.”

McCormick, who investigators learned was living across the street from Porter Park at the time of Peggy Sue’s abduction, was “in the wind” at the time of his identification. “He is on probation for a theft and burglary conviction in Marion County but has skipped out on his probation officer,” Hancock County Sheriff’s Department Captain Jim Bradbury told reporters. After embarking on a reinvestigation of the case following the Watkins exoneration, Bradbury uncovered another interesting lead that was showing some promise. “I had been talking with a confidential informant that was questioned when the original investigation was going on. I talked with him and he began to tell me little bits about what he knew about the girl’s killing,” Bradbury said. The informant was able to show investigators the precise location where Peggy Sue’s body was found, and according to Bradbury, “He told me things that only someone who was involved in the case would have known.” Bradbury also revealed that the confidential informant was safely behind bars under protective custody.

Detectives also interviewed the young men who were then the young boys seen playing with Peggy Sue at Porter Park prior to her abduction. “The original witnesses to the abduction, who were like 7 years old or 8 years old at the time, said there was more than one (abductor),” Hancock County Sheriff Nicholas Gulling told the Indianapolis Star. “And the information we received subsequently indicates there was more than one.” Here Gulling could be indicating that the confidential informant confirmed this piece of information. Setting aside the DNA match, if all of these witnesses were questioned at the time of the original investigation, why weren’t they taken more seriously then? Even if investigators felt that Watkins was involved, they had ample reason to believe that others participated as well. Yet they discounted and even suppressed that information. Nevertheless, authorities got a tip on Sunday, August 5, that McCormick was in attendance at a party in Morgan County. Investigators rushed to the scene of the festivities, but a slippery McCormick had left the party by the time they got there. They missed him by that much.

On Tuesday, August 7, 2001, 39-year-old Joseph Mark McCormick of Indianapolis walked into the Greenfield police station shortly before noon to turn himself in. His long hair and bushy beard gave him the look of a survivalist or a former Manson family member. He told police he did not have a permanent address and had been living in motels. After learning that he was being sought by authorities, McCormick got a ride from a friend to the police station. The friend, however, didn’t stick around to answer questions. Despite turning himself in to the wrong law enforcement agency, the Greenfield Police held the bedraggled drifter until Hancock County Sheriff’s officials could arrive.

At an initial hearing, McCormick was charged with murder, felony murder and two counts of child abuse to which he pleaded not guilty. Despite new suspects and solid evidence connecting Joseph McCormick to the crime, Hancock County still wasn’t finished trying to put Jerry Watkins back behind bars. “We have seen a lot of twists and turns in the case. The tests show that Jerry Watkins didn’t have anything to do with the sexual assault. That doesn’t mean he didn’t kill her but it does point to McCormick,” said Hancock County Prosecutor Terry Snow, seemingly unable to decide whether to state his case emphatically or undermine it by not letting go of Watkins as a suspect. While indicating that other arrests were possible, Captain Jim Bradbury agreed with Snow that the investigation still included Jerry Watkins. “We are still not done yet,” Bradbury told reporters.

Indeed, they weren’t done, not by a long shot, and not letting go of Jerry Watkins as a suspect was just the beginning. Investigators and prosecutors were just getting started on their clumsy efforts to sabotage their own case, practically ensuring that none of the men responsible for the rape and brutal stabbing of Peggy Sue Altes would do time for her murder.

Sources:

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

The Daily Reporter (Greenfield, Indiana)

Watkins v. Miller, Southern District of Indiana (2000)

New glasses, new problems

Lately, I’ve been receiving signals that I ought to do something about my eyesight. The menu board at an unfamiliar takeout restaurant can be confusing enough, but if you can’t read the selections, then you’re pretty screwed. I tried just making up menu items for a while. I would say, “Just give me a club sandwich, or something.” Then the order taker would politely inform me of their choices that most closely resemble a club sandwich, which often just included the addition of avocado, and I’d say, “That would be fine,” and we’d go from there. But, lately, they’ve begun to treat me like I’m illiterate or something, speaking to me slowly and patiently like I’m a child. Even my own daughter began to shoot me looks that seemed to doubt my literacy.

So, at the urging of my better half, I decided to get new glasses. Several hundred dollars later, these cheap plastic spectacles seem to have brought about an entirely new set of challenges. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve also opened up a whole new world of possibilities. Before, I mostly stuck to driving familiar routes because I had difficulty reading signs and recognizing landmarks. But now that I can read highway signs, I’m exploring entirely new realms and unfamiliar territory. Also, it came as a pleasant surprise to see that the speed limit on most highways has been raised from 55 to 70. This explains why I’d been the recipient of so much hostility from other drivers in recent years.

The challenges invariably arise when I’m indoors. I seem to have difficulty and lack confidence knowing where to place my feet. This has caused me to stumble around and bump into doorways at work. My boss has been looking askance at me like I’m intoxicated or something. But I assured her I haven’t been drunk or stoned at work for pretty close to ten years now. Also, going down stairs is like descending into a murky abyss. Sometimes I just close my eyes and hope for the best.

However, an incident this morning might be the final straw as far as these new glasses are concerned. I had just gotten a cup of coffee at Starbucks from the friendliest group of young people you’d ever want to meet, when I merrily strode out to the parking lot to get in my car and head to work. For some reason, however, I had a difficult time unlocking the car door. The key fob didn’t seem to work and when I tried to manually unlock the door, the key wouldn’t fit in the lock. After a few moments, a woman came running out of the Starbucks with one of the larger male employees shouting at me to get away from her car and that she’s calling the cops. Mortified, I noticed that my car was in the next space over, so I hurriedly jumped in it and sped out of there like Vin Diesel. I made it to work without incident, not knowing whether an a.p.b. had been issued for my capture. At any rate, I’m probably going to ditch these glasses, but I may wear them for another week as an aid to eluding authorities, or at least until the heat has died down.